


in the blink(s) of (an) eye(s)

by thirteendaze (Thirteenthesiac)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Canon, Crack, Drabble Collection, F/F, Femslash, Gen, Lesbian Sex, M/M, Multi, Other, Slash, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thirteenthesiac/pseuds/thirteendaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eclectic phrases, run-on clauses, and the shortest sentence-stories known to man. Or women. Because Axel and Roxas are girls some of the time. And sometimes not. Sometimes they id as having none of this gender-binary bullshit. Does it really matter?</p><p>yeah, anyway, drabbles.</p><p>Sora appears because, well, Roxas is Sora is Roxas all over again, just sunstained and happier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. freshmen year fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas fights her corner, but turns out Axel would had given in anyway. Completely.

Roxas looked up, glasses slipping from the bridge of her nose.

"I'm sorry, _what_ did you say?"

Looked up into a dazzling smile, unruly hair and wicked eyes.

"Name's Ax. Axel, if you can be arsed for an extra syllable and wanna try me."

Roxas wasn't seen outside of Ax's mouth for the next month. All things considered after that, the bruise to her paramour's cheekbones (and the scratches she'd attained in their cat-battle) were utterly, astoundingly, worth it.


	2. words for thoughts, or the other way around.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I'm Roxas, I think too much, say too little, and I find red-heads utterly irresistible when they walk into me and ruin my life.

Your name is Roxas.

You've never had trouble being talented with words. What comes to you is natural - elegant, practised and studied to a level beyond mortality and ignorance. What comes is the marriage of literature and horror, marred in such a way it is unfamiliar to all in your classes. It doesn't bother you. Never has. Words spill from your mouth in half-truths, mocking the senseless and biting snarls to those who think to cut you for your work. They are, after all, just words. Words harm few, and do little deaths a service. Your words bring joy and sadness in equal measure, to an inequal crowd of lecturers, colleagues, lost friends. Words are potential, words are forever, words don't leave you lost. Only people do.

Those same self-sure words blur as marbled paper in your mouth when she walks past. You've never wanted anything so much in your entire life that you are literally speechless, eyes drawn to her ridiculously unhuman body, clad in something five sizes too big on the top, and at least two sizes too small on the bottom. The words are flashing through the light now, slowly filtering through the night of your mind. _Tall. Curvaceous isn't generous enough a word to use. Skinny is more like it, but those hips? Think again. Leather jacket. Worn leather jacket. Vintage? Bleach-ruined trousers. Skinny jeans. Floaty, barely-there worn-away muslin shirt. Cowboy boots and bright, unapologetic red hair in a slack fishtail. Overplayed and oversold. Freckles. Tryhard_ , your brain is saying. _Hipster. Stupid. She's too bright for you_ , it says again, neglecting to correct the impulse that desperately needs to fire to close your slack-jawed mouth. _You hate people like this_ , it reminds you.

In a fit of forgotten reflexes, you swallow suddenly, and choke. It is the most unattractive thing you have ever done and you spin, desperate to conceal your sharp mistake from the world.

Your mistake is spinning into her gaze. She is too fast, too quick on her feet, but you both tumble onto the ground like soldiers into crushed wet eggshell and panic. Your heartbeat increases. You can feel it in your spine, your throat, your eyes, everywhere. You lift your head slightly, and the adrenaline coursing through you makes you panic thricely, until you meet her eyes.

You swear in that instant that you have never seen anything more beautiful and _lonely_ in your life, and in that instant following, you swear to make her yours.


	3. mo(u)rning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axel leaves for work. Roxas thinks too much.

Whenever Axel leaves really early, he presses a kiss to the base of Roxas' neck on downy-soft hair. He gazes at Roxas sleeping for a moment, before moving gently - Roxas is a deep sleeper, yes, but a bad one at that, plagued with dreams that terrify him enough such that he cannot vocalise them, and the sheer pause of when Axel wakes, holding his breath for a moment, is enough to wake him, eyes blinking slowly in the dark. He's almost wide-awake, instantly for that moment, and when Axel leaves, dressing in the dark, followed by the front door clicking quietly, he thinks about what might happen, what should happen, if one small part of this idyll was broken forever.

Sleep never comes easy after that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationships are weird and full of unspoken rituals. You don't complain when I drip water all over the floor, I won't complain when you start eating human flesh at the dinner table. Right, darling?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thirteendaze anon request for basic clean-up. It was started, and never revisited, except in thoughts.

He assesses the situation calmly. Front door double-locked and bolted, tool kit all rolled out, gloves out, newly dead body in the bathtub. _This_ one had put up a little bit of a struggle whilst he'd bled out - _shame_ , Roxas notes, staring at the blood droplets trickling down the tiled wall, _that scrubbing'll ruin my average time_ \- but overall it wasn't something he'd not been able to handle. He tests the blood with a fingertip, licking it off slowly and resisting the urge to plunge his entire hand into its surprising warmth, like clambering back inside a warm dark cavern. The bathroom light rather appropriately chooses this moment to flicker, and Roxas curses it silently for breaking his concentration and calm, whilst also writing a mental memorandum so he knew to buy new lightbulbs for later. It wouldn't do for the lights to go out whilst he was tying up his latest catch.

_They're pretty when they sleep_ , Roxas thinks, decanting some of the fresher blood into a small breakfast bowl, and lifting the arms higher for a more efficient flow. 

Later Axel will come in from work and open the freezer for a quick dinner fix-up to find several neat little greaseproof paper packages wrapped up in string. He will sigh, close the door, and eat leftovers in silence, eventually crawling into bed, to await the hour he is awoken by a smaller figure sneaking in, all arms and legs and cold breath. 

It isn't something they ever discuss, out loud, and never will be. 


	5. lemon sandwich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompts given: bath, rainfall, shoelaces, any pairing.  
> Went with Demyx/Axel/Roxas. And crack. This is so old, I have no idea what's going on here. No actual porn though.

Axel sneezed.

It hadn't been the...dryest of missions, and that was putting it lightly. It had been raining when they left The World That Never Was, it was wet when they were forced to search Atlantica for some stupid stone the Superior thought would help them in their (read: his) quest for Kingdom Hearts, Roxas had dripped and moped all the way there, grumped all the way through, and sulked on the way home, refusing to wring the water out from his coat and Demyx had been uncontrollable, and fairly obviously, in his element. When they returned, it was _still_ bloody raining, and Axel sighed at the thought of glueing his hair back up to its prior state. It surrounded his face, as straggly as Saix's furcoat after bathtime, and just as stubborn. No amount of glue and cement was going to fix _that._

Roxas 'humph'ed, and shook himself, spraying tiny droplets all over Castle Oblivion's atrium (Superior had ordered they relocate after Demyx's catastrophe with the fire extinguisher and Xigbar's eyepatch) and Marluxia's favourite tapestry. He was tired, wet, cold and starving and if anyone had the stupidity to get between him and a three-cheese sandwich, and glorious dreamless sleep, they didn't show it. Bending forward to stop the rainwater from dripping down into his coat, he waded forward slowly, stopping every so often to let the drips pool onto the hardwood floor (just to avenge himself for Marluxia giving him the nursery room), and stalked off in the general direction of the kitchen. 

Being the least affected by the rain, Demyx had been volunteered into carrying the Olympus Keystone back. Contrary to Axel and Roxas' less-than-presentable state, Demyx looked nothing short of sunshine-reared in a fine watery mist, and as bouncy as ever. His one and only complaint was that he'd forgotten to take his notecards out of his pocket before they went to mermaid, and now he had nothing to say on solo missions as they'd gotten fairly smushed in the watery depths. He grinned beatifically, and danced around the stone in his hands, waltzing around the sniffly Axel and off to see the Wizard of Hearts (no doubt gazing lovingly at his giant moon from some hidden balcony). 

Just as Axel had collected himself enough to move, Marluxia,king of bad entrances, threw a screaming fit over his tapestry, the oakwood flooring, and the puddle that he was currently cohabiting with his estranged hairstyle. Axel, not in the mood for everyone's favourite fanciful florist, singed his eyebrows off and stomped off to the showers, laces coming undone. In the hallway, Marluxia smouldered, and fell over. 

It would have been a better sandwich had Vexen not replaced the cheese with some confection of his own, Roxas reflected moodily, as he wiped what he thought might be lemon curd off his fingers onto the Superior's chair (bastard deserved it, he knew Roxas hated swimming, especially with a tail). Didn't taste as bad as it could have done, and seeing how he hadn't suddenly sprouted breasts (a favourite experiment of Vexen's the past month which caused the oestrogen levels in the Castle to rise to unbearable levels. It was only when it got into Saix's drinking water that the Superior stepped in, possibly to avoid the horrors of a menstruating VI, and the pain that could ensue) Roxas decided a proper bath would be in order. Possibly with bubbles, and Axel's rubber duckie that he kept hidden beneath the tiles to the side of the working sink that he thought no one knew about. Something warm and comforting that didn't kick him when sleep was wanted, or steal the duvet and talk in its sleep. He was liking the idea so much that instead of casting a burning look at Luxord for throwing dice at him in the corridor, he merely side-stepped and threw him a special coin he'd had minted in Gotham, to confuse him. And it did, splendidly. 

Demyx burbled, lurking like a shark in the pool of a bath Marluxia had had installed specially. It called for bathing suits, really, but Demyx was far too mellow to bother, and besides, the best kinds of baths were often had naked. Usually with other people - Demyx favoured Zexion when he wasn't busy studying the habits of laboratory mice, or Xigbar when he wasn't being a colossal piratical pervert, or even Axel, although he did insist on heating water to such a temperature that hurt bits of him that he was sure would be missed later on that night. So, Demyx pretended to be a mermaid, and made small waves in the gigantic bath, feet barely touching the bottom, as he cruised. 

"Demyx, that you?"  
Demyx surfaced and made dripping facial noises.  
"Aaaaxel?"  
"Yeah. You mind if I...?"  
"Jump innnn, it's looooovely. Marly's a bum for not letting us know about his bath before."  
"I suspect it's unclean, Dem, what with him manknapping Lexaeus every third weekend for group gardening therapy, but fuck it. I need a break."  
Axel sighed, still dripping, and stripped down to his boxers, leaving the coat, gloves and trousers in a messy pile by Marluxia's washbasket (not in it, that would make it far too easy for the bastard), trying to tug his boots off, unsuccessfully.  
"I think they've shrunk," Axel said, casting his eyes to the heavens that had been painted onto the ceiling. Demyx paddled over, holding onto the side.  
"This is why you need velcro!" Demyx nodded seriously. "It solves all your problems."  
"You're just not allowed shoelaces because Superior caught you trying to take Larxene's rabbit for a walk with them, and strangling it by accident. And thinking they were liqorice and trying to eat them. And the time when you were convinced they were made out of rat tails and chopped them all up to put in Vexen's hair."  
"Zexy had hidden the collar!" Demyx pouted, clambering over the side to help with the problem shoes. "And they looked yummy, and Vexy was being a bum."  
Axel averted his eyes. not out of politeness, but merely because his hair was getting in the way. With a bit of help, they managed to pull one of the skin-tight boots off. The second followed, and crashed into a surprised-looking face that they surmised (once the hair had been swept off the face) belonged to Roxas.  
Demyx and Axel jumped straight into the bath. Axel still with his socks on, and he removed them underwater, balling them up to use as ammunition.  
"Get out, I want a bath."  
"Nuh-uh, I was here first."  
"Demyx," Roxas sighed unpatiently, "you like water. I don't. This whole mission has been hell. You've had enough fun. Let me have my bath." He zipped out of his coat, and Axel whooped.  
"Take it all off, kid!"  
Roxas obliged, eyes blazing, until he stood there in absolutely nothing, with only the rubber duckie to preserve his modesty, but only when he was absolutely sure Demyx wasn't peeking (and he had the coat in one hand, just in case).  
"You bastards, I need a fucking bath here," he snarled.  
"So jump in, the water's how you like it. Ice cold, like yer heart."  
"Oh, fuck you", he retorted, slipping in gingerly anyway, "And you," he added before throwing Axel's duck at the ceiling. Xigbar howled and sharply withdrew.  
"You smell like _lemons_ ," Demyx giggled, and blew some more bubbles.  
Roxas sank to the bottom of the bath and amused himself by licking Axel's feet until Axel gave up resisting and stuck his hands somewhere Roxas would never admit to liking, under cover of the foam, of course. Eventually even Demyx noticed his bathtime companions were too busy for intelligent conversation, and decided to tie their boots together for no reason at all, before joining in with his own brand of pleasurable craziness.  
  
When they were out, sated, all dried off, and substantially less moody, Axel took their boots and burnt out the laces for want of something else destructive to do.  
  
Roxas went downstairs and made another sandwich.


	6. falling, drowning, dead.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> destructive, but not deathless.

Roxas backs Axel into a wall, hands tugging desperately at his belt, kissing and kissing him until the tears stop, until Axel wrenches himself away, almost breaking the kid's arm; and getting Saïx involved. Roxas fights Six, of course he does. He knows Axel may never come back. He knows the Superior has forbidden him to speak to the flame-haired wonder anymore, but still he continues. Five and Six hold him back as Axel and Demyx depart, Demyx at least having the good grace to turn and give him a sorrow-laden look. Axel's back is unyielding, a deceptive amount of strength in his tapered body. Roxas screams at him, begging for anything, a sign, a look, a tear, a hiss, hatred, love, despair, acknowledgement, just... _something_ ; Something to prove he still exists to anybody in this timeless place, this empty worldless land of nothing.

When only Demyx returns, beaten and bloody and soaked, Roxas walks into the storm and never looks back.


	7. haze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love is stupid. Love is stupid especially when you have no word for what wrenches your blackened heart through your ribcage and into your mouth, where you macerate away at it until all that's left is bloody teeth and stained lips.

When Roxas turns around for the last time, Axel knows without a doubt that this is the one time he cannot follow. His shoulders slump forwards in a parody of his once strong back and he watches his partner disappear, the faint scent of ocean barely visible amongst the grey that surrounds him. It would be fruitless to follow - that blonde-haired kid was unchangeable once he’d made his mind up - but he would have hoped at least, that he might be allowed to accompany him, if only to weaken his own being in servitude to a lower rank. For Roxas, he realises, he would have done anything, back in the days when they lived for the end of missions, the sunsets spent on the high towers, the thunderstorms spent in dark rooms with nothing but their breathing to sustain them through the long nights. Back then he would have chased Roxas to the end of the worlds and back, if only to see him smile. Axel barely recognises the kid anymore. What was once shy brilliance had faded into a lacklustre glimmer hidden beneath the tarnish of scepticism and misplaced faith. Axel does not hope for a miracle, for love to conquer them both, for he was not even sure the emotion was his to claim in the first place. 

Roxas scrapes the keyblades along the gravel path menacingly, although there is no one to watch him. He is constantly under threat now, by the shadows his mind conjures, by the double-wielding Dusks he used to command, by his heart. His own. He shakes his hood from his hair and stops in the half-light, a silhouette against the grey dawn, rain heightening to a trickle beneath what might’ve been stars, somewhere, rather than the obscured gaseous spheres they really were. One by one, he imagined them winking out, each a world elsewhere, unblinkered by the lies they had fed him. _He_ had fed him. Possibly a part of him seeks to remember the clock tower where they'd spent such a long time - Roxas swinging his legs, waiting for _someone_ , a tall man with red hair and a long,black coat, they'd said....They'd told him to take no nonsense from Eight, they were only sending _him_ because the other eleven were otherwise indisposed,and besides, what better punishment was there for a single-digit ranker (who had seen fit to burn several holes through neighbouring bedrooms in a sleep-deprived, inebriated state whilst looking for a bathroom) than bringing the rookie home? Roxas had sensibly kept his mouth shut while the silver-haired man droned on in an awkwardly deep voice that fought with his suddenly-jelly knees for dominance. Perhaps a moment too soon, his right caved in, and he found himself prostrate before the Superior, who smiled, briefly surprised, before christening him, clothing him, and sending him on his way. 

They hadn't told him about Sora. Sora the Keyblade-bearer, Sora the hero of the known worlds. Sora the other half, the whole of Roxas and more besides, the one he - 

 

Roxas did not take kindly to forcibly being kept out of it; but seven days short of a year later, it didn't matter any longer.


	8. super glue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas is destructive interference and Axel is cohesive.

Love?  
Love was about diplomacy, about seeking compromise and quarter. Roxas lacked all of those qualities, and more. Roxas didn't quite understand the point of seeking solace in others when you could walk into the empty city and scream and scream until the heavens opened above you and howled back.   
Axel would merely walk behind him to pick up what pieces remained after the storm and glue them all back together with his own brand of magic sticky tape and wait until Roxas seemed back to his normal, abrasive self again.


	9. misery loves company. and misery is hungry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sora remembers more than he bargained for.

He locks the door.   
He wants to ring Axel. He wants to run into Axel's arms and sob it out, that he's sorry, that he can't stand this pretending with Riku any more, he wants out, he wants back into Axel's life, he's so sorry, so incredibly sorry....  
Sora sobs into his mattress and pretends that he can love Riku, pretends he can stop loving Axel, pretends that a tiny part of him does not want what it cannot have, should not have. It's like he said. It isn't right, and it certainly isn't fair.   
Sora remembers whose boxers he is wearing and wriggles out of them, flinging them to the floor in horror. He reaches for the phone on his bedside cabinet, then remembering, curls back up onto the bed and cries, mirroring the soft cries from next-door. He lies there, silently hating himself, until his stomach can handle it no more and he absolutely has to make himself a sandwich, anything to silence his rumbling stomach.   
He searches for clothes with his eyes, before pulling on a fresh pair of boxers and shorts, dragging his jacket on, Axel's scent still fresh on it. He opens his door carefully, but all he hears are the mournful echoes of Nine Inch Nails, and so he sneaks downstairs, and opens the fridge.


	10. I'm bleeding out (so if it's the last thing that I'll do - )

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- is to bring you down? I'll bleed out for you.
> 
> Roxas cleans up pretty good after a bath. Axel/Saix if you squint.   
> I have bad eyesight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daze. Found this lurking in a deleted file, decided I liked it enough to revive. Warnings for the usual - gore, blood, viscera, too many run-on clauses....

Roxas sat back, and cackled, resting back on Axel's knees. The wicked smile was back on his face at last. "Loyal to the very end. I'll make sure to tell him that. It's okay, I don't find you in the least attractive. I've just enjoyed messing with you."

He gently forced the knotwork back into Axel's mouth, flicking a sharp finger to the man's forehead as he began to struggle once more.The scalpel gleamed in the poor light as he brought it down gently, and cut a precise gash into his straining neck; the blood began spurting out immediately, and Roxas was quick to press a hand against it, licking his lips as he took pleasure in the warmth flowing over his fingertips. The bath began to fill, and he quickly slipped the metal plug in, so the bath began to fill with crimson. 

"Couple of minutes left, Axel," he murmured. "All over soon."

Roxas petted his hair as he jerked beneath him, ivory bath being spattered that gorgeous dark vermilion colour he so craved. Part of the spray ends up travelling farther than he'd hoped, and he draws the shower curtain around them to prevent another overshoot. His hands are stained beautifully now, blood dripping off the cuticles, threatening to stain the cracks in his black nailpolish, and he risks lifting a hand just to taste - only to have the wretched carotid spurt right in his face. For a moment, there's only shock, forcefully closed eyes against the sudden bubbling noise, and then he laughs loudly, more freely than he had for a long time, licking what he could from his face, and closing his eyes for a moment, feeling the pulse weaken ever so quickly.

His arteries bled out quickly, sharply, pulsating - the veins Roxas had severed less so. Roxas wondered for a moment, watching the blood pool around his head, around Axel's blood-red hair, what he would have been like in battle, the blood of his enemies spattered crimson across his skin in great soaring arcs. Perhaps he'd be laughing, raucously triumphant over death; perhaps head held low, rasping for breath and bleeding out from too many wounds to stay upright for long. He settled for watching the man jerk against the ropes, no dignity in death, as the last of his life fled his veins, listening to the breath catch and rattle wetly in his bloody throat. 

And then Axel was gone. 

\---------------------

The next morning, Roxas was up early, whistling around his small apartment as he pulled on a scruffy dark brown wig, jamming a worn beanie over the top of it. He pulled a smile in the mirror, before returning his usual scowl to his facial features. No one would recognise him at this post office, one he'd never visited before, but to be sure, he'd amassed a few of Sora's clothes and jackets left behind by old one-night stands and previous occupants. He was sure that with these new clothes, his winning smile, and charmingly fake accent, he'd be able to leave Roxas Hart at home, and continue outside as Bryan Fence, or Jackson McCartney, and no one would be any the wiser.  
There was a fake return address scrawled across a nondescript cardboard box. Next to him, he'd wrapped a surprisingly heavy package up in bubble wrap, then doubled over with brown packing paper. It was strange how heavy the extra weight of the hair made the box, but he thought only of the face who would be the first to see the contents. It would be worth the extra cost. Roxas hoped this Axel's other Roxas liked surprises. He didn't know anyone who thought badly of them, and so he hummed cheerfully as he picked out a biro and started writing a short note on the back of a postcard, depicting their local park's rather bland scenery. There was a duckpond. 

When he was done, he sealed the box with a good few metres of tape and locked up, sauntering down the street and whistling brightly.

 

'Dearly beloved, 

Missing you terribly. Coming back very very soon. 

Love you to pieces. 

Axel. 

x'


End file.
